The FontAudit tool in FontLab VI name them 'zero-length handles" and identify as an error, offering a quite precise auto fix. For me, who made not dozens or hundreds, but thousands of zero-length handles because I was not aware they are an issue, this was a real rubber ring.

Morissey’s lyric may also be interpreted as a lament for the passing of the vinyl record, which he associates with the music of his youth—it was written around the time CD sales surpassed vinyl. A rubber ring is not only a flotation device for young swimmers, but an important part of a turntable, possibly three, in fact: the belt drive, the o-ring between the cartridge head and the rest of the arm, and the ring the platter sits on. In all these, the purpose of the rubber is to insulate the signal from untoward vibration.